The Prey Series First Editions Reference

The Prey series is one of the longest-running and most successful detective series in American crime fiction, spanning over thirty novels. The series follows Lucas Davenport from Minneapolis police detective through various law enforcement roles, maintaining the quality and readability that made Rules of Prey an instant success.

Series Value Pattern

Like most long-running series, the Prey novels follow a descending value curve from the debut:

• Books 1–3 (Rules of Prey, Shadow Prey, Eyes of Prey): The most valuable, with modest first printings from before Sandford’s fame
• Books 4–10: Moderate values, growing printings
• Books 11–20: Affordable, large printings
• Books 20+: Readily available, including the Virgil Flowers spin-off series

Collecting Strategy

The series completist faces a manageable challenge: over thirty titles, but only the first three or four require serious hunting. The rest can be assembled at moderate cost. A complete signed set would represent a significant investment in time if not money.

Sandford has also published the Virgil Flowers series (beginning with Dark of the Moon, 2007) and the Kidd series, which are collected by Sandford completists.